From: Hubert Mania (humania@t-online.de)
Date: Mon Aug 18 2003 - 13:28:45 MDT
Mark Walters writes:
> I'm not sure I understand the relevance of the voting discussion. I'm not
> suggesting that we vote people off the list, I'm suggesting that people
> might change their behavior in response to the signals they get about the
> value of their posts. Think of it as somewhat like a market. We are
> producers of messages and we want as many people to "buy" our messages as
> possible. If I send out messages that have a high perceived noise to
signal
> ratio many people will put me in their killfile, so I will have fewer
> "buyers". I agree about the perennial dangers of centralized authority,
and
> while what I am suggesting is not immune from distortion, I also think the
> dangers of corruption are fairly minimal. The public display of the
> killfiles might look like a table with everyone's name on this list (there
> is what about a 1000 people on this list?) on the X and Y axis. I could
look
> up your name and see if I am in your killfile and you can look up my name
> and see if I am in your killfile. One conjecture then is that if people
can
> signal their dislike of someone's posts by using the killfile this may
> reduce the acrimonious exchanges that sometimes go on. If we are having
such
> an exchange I might put you in my killfile and you might retaliate by
> putting me in your killfile--and so would end the exchange. Next to each
> person's name would be the number of people that have entered him or her
> into their killfiles. The conjecture is that people might change their
> behavior so as not to be entered into too many killfiles. Take an extreme
> example. Suppose an individual posts tons of Nazi propaganda to the list
> every day. I conjecture that almost all will enter this person into their
> killfiles, hence the Nazi's voice will go unheard. This Nazi cannot
complain
> about a centralized authority squashing her voice since the killfiles are
> set by individuals. As I said, the right to free speech does not entail an
> obligation on others to listen. The reason this system would be relatively
> impervious to corruption is that each person's killfile would be
displayed.
> If there was an attempt to discredit someone by artificially raising their
> killfile quotient this could be easily detected because each killfile is
> assignable to a specific individual. If the list managers tried to
> artificially raise your killfile quotient they would have to assign it to
> some individuals, say one of them is me. When I look and see that my
> preferences have been tampered with I will scream bloody blue murder on
and
> off the list.
In your message you use the word killfile fifteen times.
Maybe it has to to with a language barrier, but when I read the word
killfile 15 times in a 35 line message I get the impression there is a war
going on in the heads of the posters. All this scoring and voting,
collecting
points, making impressions, being competitive, getting adapted to the rat
race of a mental market place.. Scoring, statistics . . . well I simply
don`t like it. The use of this very word "killfile" suggests a hostile
atmosphere, at least a competitive one with this
noise-to-signal-ratio-correctness, always this obsession to be efficient.
I never implemented a killfile in my whole Internet career. I want to *know*
what my opponents think. That's why I read their messages with a special
care and interest. Sometimes I learn from them more than from persons I
always agree with.
Hubert "Killthekillfiles" Mania
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